Long-serving NRL player Chris Lawrence has announced he will retire from rugby league at the end of the season.
The 31-year-old made his debut in 2006 for Wests Tigers and has been a one-club man all his career, racking up a total of 250 appearances.
The centre or second rower also collected six caps for Australia during that time, scoring four tries.
Following his retirement, Lawrence will go full-time with his business One Wellbeing, a platform based on educating and empowering athletes both on and off the field.
He said: “I still had the motivation and still had the drive to get up and do the training and the work that was necessary but I found myself during that period working really hard within my business that I had set up and grown.
“At that stage there were a lot of unknowns – even if we would come back – and I really enjoyed having another challenge that was different from footy.
“Even though I have had that business for a number of years I found a real passion and drive for a new challenge.
“I suppose, coming back into training and that sort of mini pre-season before we started playing and the games, the body is getting older and it’s a bit tougher to recover.
“If I went another year I don’t think that drive would still be there to put my body on the line week-in and week-out to perform at this level. It is what I pride my game on and I just started to feel doubts whether I would do that next year.”
